Gratitude for a Life Well Lived

Gratitude for a Life Well Lived

The Greatest Generation

For all my grandparents

Rachel Van Horn-triolet

The last twilight of autumn sky retreats.

Where has the Greatest Generation gone?

Survivors cross the shores, shells rain in sheets.

The last twilight of autumn sky retreats.

Now they’ve come home.  They’re kissing in the streets.

Flags cover caskets.  Gun salutes are drawn.

The last twilight of autumn sky retreats.

Where has the Greatest Generation gone?

I have not put anything into writing since my grandfather died. Words cannot do justice to the range of influence his life, his character, and his presence had on the family, the community, and me. When I found out he had passed, I could not help but feel gratitude that he was at home, in his sleep, and at peace when he slipped away. I couldn’t help but feel gratitude for his life’s presence in our family. I couldn’t help but feel gratitude to come from a well-regarded family, partly to the credit of Granddaddy’s moral character. I couldn’t help but feel gratitude for the generous time I had both Ma and Granddaddy in my life. Grover Coleman was 89 years old.

He was born on a farm in 1924, the second son of George and Lily Day Coleman. He had two sisters, Betty and Mary, and an older brother, Earl. He grew up on the South Georgia soil, and went to school until his junior year, when his father needed his help on the farm. A few years later, he was drafted into the Navy during World War II. After the war, he married Eloise Evans, and they had five children—Janis, Gary, Brent, Jennie, and Marty.

They worked hard to raise a family, and he worked as a provider—a farmer, woolen mill worker, egg truck driver, small business owner, and restaurant owner. He and Eloise became pillars in their community, running The Chicken Place, famous for the recipe of fried chicken people still mention to this day. Every year, Eloise and Grover worked the polls, helping Americans exercise their constitutional right and civic duty to vote in elections. They went to church every Sunday, visited the sick, aided people in need, and helped out family any time they asked. I never met anyone more generous than my grandparents, and I spent days with them on the farm while my mom went back to work, and then when I went to college, their home became my second home, and they became my second parents.

Growing up, Granddaddy was a trickster and a comic. He possessed the quickest reflexes I know, slapping my hands before I could remove them from the white bar in the kitchen we sat around for hours eating and talking through the years. He made a monkey face that made me laugh. He moved his ears and made his glasses move up and down, and he always ended his day in that old recliner. When he came home, my sister Stephanie and I removed his boots and socks. One of his “daddy” toes was missing a nail and part of it was missing due to a lawn mower accident years before. We sat in his lap after taking off his boots. Every spring, Granddaddy plowed my parents’ garden, and he drove the tractor the five miles from his barn to our house. I rode with him, standing beside the wheel as we rode back and forth. My sister and I rode in the back of his old yellow pickup truck down old dirt roads, and he and Ma took me to town, where I always insisted on Captain D’s, and they always took me. Their house always had (and still has) people coming and going, all filled with laughter, warmth, and love. He and Ma’s presence helped me through many problems, and I am thankful for the good and bad.

A beautiful bench style table sits in my parents’ kitchen fashioned by Granddaddy’s gifted hands, from the pews of church benches our family and other White Springs members sat on for decades. He never sat in a college classroom for a day, but mechanically, his skill was unparalleled. He spent hours under his dusty shed and sawed beautiful items for the family. In spite of his lack of formal education, he spent hours in his recliner reading and studying the bible, books, and the newspaper, and he could recall information and tell a story in true Coleman style. However, there was never anything proud or assuming about Granddaddy. The hot temper from his youth had mellowed, and he served as a Sunday school teacher, deacon, community leader, father, grandfather, and great grandfather.

Grover and Eloise Coleman were married for 68 years, and they were sweethearts to the end. Their young love was stormy. They told the story of Granddaddy wanting a kiss from Ma when they were courting. Ma said no, and Granddaddy threatened to drive the car off the road if she wouldn’t kiss him. She held her ground, and he held his as well, and he ran the car off the road, or so the story goes. As they aged, I saw them hold hands more, their love mellowing into a deeper, sweeter form like a fine aged wine. They became one another’s life. Ma lived to care for Granddaddy as he declined in health, and he lived to see her face every morning. The deepening of their love through the years and the forthright and honest nature of Granddaddy is a legacy I will always treasure and will pass to younger generations I have the privilege to teach.  Thank you God for my Granddaddy, and the legacy of a life well lived.